


Sweetheart, I—

by MMXIII



Series: Mirror, darkly [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Blood and Gore, Character Death, Graphic Description, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Kid Fic, M/M, Mind Control, Partial Mind Control, Psychological Trauma, Scarlet Witch - Freeform, probably too much angst, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 20:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3868906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMXIII/pseuds/MMXIII
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve’s standing in a threshold.<br/>It’s like one of those videogames Sam introduced him to, with the labyrinthine levels. He thinks he was somewhere else a second ago but he can’t quite remember, can’t go back.</p><p>OR: An alternate version of Steve's 'vision' in Age of Ultron. </p><p>[I noticed there was a party on this particular bandwagon, so I jumped on ;)]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweetheart, I—

**Author's Note:**

> This consists solely of unresolved angst - proceed with caution

 

 

Steve’s standing in a threshold. 

It’s like one of those videogames Sam introduced him to, with the labyrinthine levels. He thinks he was somewhere else a second ago but he can’t quite remember, can’t go back.

There’s an electric smell in the air, blood, _adrenaline_ , and he _knows_ he has to go forward. He knows something’s _wrong_.

The room in front of him isn’t familiar, but he does recognise the record-player by the couch, the jacket hung by the door, the clothes he’s wearing: a sweatpants-tshirt combo that’s been demoted to the rank of ‘pyjama’. He catches sight of the keys to his bike of a low coffee-table next to a framed sketch of his mom and a child’s drawing of what might be a cat.

 

It is perfectly, absolutely silent, and then, as if passing through an airlock, the sound hits him: running water, a child crying.

Both are coming from down the hall directly ahead.

 

The noise gets louder as he passes through the room and steps warily into the hallway, pausing briefly at the threshold to touch the doorframe and note the little pencil markings at his hip: _3yrs2m, 3years4m, 3yrs4m1wk._

 

It’s obvious where he’s headed. His heart is hammering, blood thrumming behind his ears as he comes to stand outside the first door on his left. The carpet at the foot of the door is wet and tinged slightly pink; he’s painfully aware of the fact that he’s unarmed. He feels cold all over, like being submerged. Something’s wrong. Something’s always wrong.

 

It’s a kitchen. Nothing special. Just your average, lived-in, chipped-and-peeling job, the kind of kitchen Steve would pick to piss off Tony. Except in this kitchen both faucets are running full blast and there’s water streaming over the lip of the sink and pouring down the side of the cabinets.

And there’s a man slumped on the floor underneath with a little boy curled into him, nuzzling his cheek against the man’s chest.

 

Steve steps into the room before he even knows what he’s doing and the little boy looks up, eyes red and raw, and hurls across the room, flinging himself at Steve’s legs

Steve, alarmed, crouches down to meet him. He’s soaking wet and freezing cold and he throws his arms around Steve’s neck as soon as he can reach.

 

‘Dad’s not. Not movin-ng’ he gulps jarringly, clutching at Steve’s shirt desperately. He makes a high-pitched keening sound and butts his head against the underside of Steve’s jaw, tries to clamber up into Steve’s lap.

Steve brings his arms around him rubs his back gently in what he hopes is a soothing gesture.

The child shudders and whimpers wetly, burying his face tightly into Steve’s neck. Steve reflexively clutches him tighter and stands slowly, lifting him up against his chest. He shivers involuntarily as the cold water seeps through his own clothes and what feels like right through to the bone. Steve cradles the boy against him and moves into the room.

 

By the time he finds himself standing over the body there’s an inch or two of freezing water soaking up into his sweatpants and numbing his feet and ankles.

 

The boy whimpers and curls his fingers into the neck of Steve’s tee.

Steve steels himself and looks down.

 

There’s a dark corona of blood curling out from under the man’s head, thread-like tendrils drawn away from the body by the momentum of the cascading water.

He’s lying on his back, neck slack, face turned down in the water, away from the door. His tshirt is dark where the water’s bled up through the fibres. His feet are bare. The water, which seems to be rising, laps at his nose and mouth, at his fingers, unmoving, mismatched.

The hair at the base of the neck is short, clipped, and dark. From this angle, the profile of the face is clearly visible. But Steve doesn’t need to _see._ He can tell from way the hair tapers, from the whorl at the apex of the skull, the curl of the ear, the soft-strong place at the hinge of the jaw–

 

It’s Bucky.

 

Steve crouches carefully, shifting his arms to hold the kid in one hand and kneels down, knees pressing against the side of Bucky’s ribcage. He’s thinner than when Steve’s last saw him, not unhealthily so, just leaner. More like how he used to be. He’s also perfectly, perfectly still.

Steve exhales slowly.

‘Don’t look’ he rasps, stroking his hand down the boy’s back. His chest tightens as the boy curls further into his shirt, mashing his face into Steve’s shoulder, and starts to convulse in folded wet hiccups.

‘All. All. Alredd-y saw’ he sobs and suddenly all Steve can think about, all that sears white-hot through his brain, is how Bucky was always better with kids.

 

He can feel the back of his eyes, his throat, his chest, _burning_. He stifles a sob of his own, chokes it back, flattens it with his tongue, and presses his mouth to the kid’s head instead. Kisses the dark, soft hair. Bucky’s hair. Bucky’s _son_.

Steve’s—

The boy shudders, breathing in a series of wheezing gasps.

‘Daddy’ he gasps, ‘daddy, dad—’

‘It’s alright’ Steve lies tremulously, ‘shhh, Sweetheart. It’s alright’.

Distantly, He wonder if there’s ever been a world where Steve Rogers gets to Bucky Barnes in time. Where Bucky doesn’t die over and over and over. Where Steve doesn’t have to watch. Doesn’t have to live through it. After it.

 

And Steve’s a soldier, he doesn’t _need_ to look.

 

But he slips his palm under Bucky’s jaw anyway, velvet soft, and turns Bucky’s face gently towards him. This could be the last time, he thinks, he just wants to see, just once more. Maybe it’ll look like sleeping. He knows it won’t, there’s too much blood. But maybe it will. He smoothes his fingers along Bucky’s cold jaw, heart pounding so hard they twitch lightly against the damp skin.

He tries to say something but ends up making a sound that’s awful and mangled. The boy tightens his small arms around Steve’s neck and gulps in jagged snatches of air.

Bucky’s head turns stiffly against Steve’s hand, heavy like a sack of sugar and almost fully submerged. There’s blood caked under his nose, black and sticky, and a viscous, pink, transparent fluid clotted inside his ears and down his neck. The room starts to twist. Bucky’s eyes are glassy, pupils almost fully dilated. He smells ferrous. Ferrous and acrid.

 

He’s dead.

 

Steve’s stomach lurches. He retches, mindful of the little body shivering against him, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and rocks him carefully, their little boy.

‘It’s alright’ he croons shakily as the room whirls and cracks around him.  

_Steve—_

 

‘It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alri—’.

 

 

 

_Steve—_

_—wake up, it’s alri—_

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> *whispers* I'm really, really sorry...


End file.
